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Well, scientists use mathematical logic, quite a long trip from the sandbox.

Some people say that scientists need science philosophy, as birds need birdwatchers. At least birdwatchers build some houses for the birds, and make sure their predator population don't get too high. I'm still waiting for philosophers to get rid of those republican/conservative/evolutionist/put-your-own-retard here.

Remember this [slashdot.org] story from ages ago? Remember how well that returned on its promises of creating a real brain? That was spike-timing dependent plasticity as well, and unsurprisingly it never did anything resembling thought.

The only place where the FACETS European project promised to create a real brain was on/. The project goal

was to create a theoretical and experimental foundation for the realisation of novel computing paradigms which exploit the concepts experimentally observed in biological nervous systems

, according to its website [1].

As a matter of fact, this project has been a success, and led to the BrainScaleS European project, which

aims at understanding function and interaction of multiple spatial and temporal scales in brain information processing.

That's forgetting the time domain. Even if the spike is binary (but, for instance, some cells in the retina are purely analog), the timing between spikes really matters. It appears that this timing is controlled by a lot of factors, including subthreshold activity. The timing leads to varying spike frequency, correlations, etc.
One should not forget that every neuron is a cell, involving large amounts of (mostly unknown) molecular mechanisms impacting the spike discharges, hence the neural information.

That's because you talk about AI, whereas the topic here is computational neuroscience (biological neurons).
The Hodgkin-Huxley model, dates back to the 50's, and includes ion channels. Those guys receive the Nobel for that. If you look at the Figure 1 in the paper [1], they draw the small circuit associated with their differential equations.
As to the novelties in their approach, one should have a look at their paper, which should be on PNAS, but I cannot find it (first there is no issue of the 14, and nothing in the 15th, second a search for Rachmuth does not lead to any result on the website).
[1] August 28, 1952 The Journal of Physiology, 117, 500-544